As noted in earlier postings, the public domain message board on this website is a popular target of spammers. This is one of the reasons that the website initially blocked search engine robots (“spiders”) that crawl the web indexing information on websites so that it can be located by searches. However, spammers continued to locate the message board by various means.

The main search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Bing honor this blocking mechanism. However, by analyzing the website sign-ons and traffic, it was obvious that some search engines (primarily in other countries) disregard this request. So the block was removed. This is why you may now see links to this website when you “google” the name of a particular person or place mentioned on the site. This does result in some spammer traffic, but it helps others who may be genuinely interested in the Concordia area find this website.

Although the message board uses a simple Captcha mechanism (the fuzzy box with a skewed alphanumeric string that must be repeated) to prevent automated registrations, some spammers either use sophisticated automated sign-on tools or manually type in the string attempting to register on the board. So traffic from spammers continues. I have blocked the e-mail addresses used in attempted registrations where the e-mail messages are obviously from other countries or from addresses popular with spammers (such as hotmail.com). If you use one of these e-mail addresses when you try to register, I will not receive the request. So you will need to send a message directly to my personal e-mail address requesting a registration. Also, if I receive a request from an address that is not blocked that appears to be from a spammer, I disregard the request and block that address. If it is not clear who is sending a request, I send a challenge message requesting that they reply with some information indicating that they are familiar with the Concordia area or people. If the response indicates a legitimate interest in Concordia, I will enable the registration. So, if you receive one of these challenges, please be specific when indicating your connection with Concordia or its people.

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